Headspace

On the bus to the workplace organised prawning competition*, I had a chat with a colleague from the next department - an interesting, articulate girl J., who is fresh out of university. I love speaking with people who had fun learning at uni because they are dying to share this life changing experience. The conversation glanced on a few ice breaking topics (holiday, etc), gender studies and her project on deviants. Sometime in our conversation, she mentioned that she has a few friends who are butch.

E: When I didn't know better, I always wondered why didn't they put on a dress or go to a better hairdresser. (My favourite story because it made people laugh when I said I almost said it to a colleague some years ago.)

J: We were at JC when a group of us saw two girls. It was Saturday evening, quite late, after ECC. From far away we saw a class with the fan on. Eh, what's that? So the group of us went to check it out. We tried the door but it was locked. So a guy friend climbed up the windows. Shocked, he came down and said to us, "Don't see, don't see." Of course we had to see, and that was when we saw two girls at it.

EC: Gosh!

The conversation that began about gender issues became mostly a gossipy prattle later. It was quite interesting, especially, the bits on sexual deviants where she told me about transvestites in Changi Village who charge $30 an hour and while waiting for the prawn to make their way from the other end to my line, I began to wonder why being interesting is such a death knell for my dating life. A fellow and I would be chatting nicely to each other and then the damnable word would escape from his lips and that would be the end of it. Of course, at first that I didn't understand that it wasn't meant as compliment because it was uttered in a smiley manner, with the light in the eyes that said, what an admirable girl this is, so how on earth could it be not a compliment, when the truth came in a crashing silence of the telephones. Rinse, lather, etc, it dawn that being interesting seems to be seriously uninteresting. And I thought about my conversation with J. in the bus. It was interesting and I would like to have another conversation with her - perhaps something without the gossipy, more factual. Did I bond with her? I don't think this would be what my friend V., would classify as good interpersonal chemistry. Bonding seems to require a sharing of feelings, a display of social support. To do that all within 20 min, seem impossible and shallow yet somehow de reguire in the initial formation of close bonds. And my preference for factual and resistance to shallow bond forming is the essence of the gist in the core of nub. Hence, a transformation of proportions undertaken by Eliza Doolittle is superfluous and could be the nail in the coffin - an overhaul of the internal engine of the mind is completely necessary.

*I caught 5 that ambled around where I was pondering.